Black and White All Over

In Paris, Christmas trees are saved until
they wither away.

Winter Sales Begin In Paris

by Ric
Erickson

Paris:- Monday, 17. January 2000:- You will
probably notice that none of the pictures in this issue
contain any color. One of the reasons for this is Paris'
winter weather, which tends to render the city in a million
shades of grey.

According to my big red dictionary, 'gray' is an
adjective with the substitute spelling of 'grey.' 'Grey'
itself in a noun; the name of an achromatic color, 'of any
lightness between the extremes of black and white.'

You could therefore write, 'a gray and overcast
afternoon,' and be perfectly correct to use 'grey' instead.
But if you write, 'the sky is grey' you should use 'grey'
and not 'gray.'

Before I looked this up, I thought 'gray' was reserved
for 'warm' grey and 'grey' was used for 'cool' grey. What
we have in Paris these days is very definitely cool grey.
About once a week, a bit of weak sunlight peeks at Paris -
but never when forecasted.

At a recent Café Metropole Club meeting Mark
Kritz showed us his new digital camera. He made one comment
that stuck in my memory - he said he didn't think it was
any good for making black and white photos.

There may be very high-end digital cameras that offer
the possibility of turning the color off. But it seems
hardly necessary, because it is a one-step operation to
substitute the 'millions' of colors for 'millions' of
shades of grey.

Mark said he knew this, but he wasn't happy with the
results. Even though I don't 'dump the color' often, I
thought I could show him a way to do it if we could sit
down together with a computer, an image-editing program and
a photo to work on.

The time to do this never came around. Meanwhile, I
discovered that my building is full of photographers -
which is not really a surprise because the neighborhood has
two or three photo galleries and some
professional labs. Oddly, there is no photo-hardware supply
shop within 500 metres.

Without my knowing it consciously, my brain apparently
added up Mark's desire to make digital black and white
photos, the photographers in my building, the current
winter weather conditions - and the fact that the important
'Atget & Abbott' exhibition at the Musée
Carnavalet was about to end, as it did yesterday.

Mr.
Kritz is not praying, he is puzzling over a correct
camera-setting.

I have known about Eugène Atget for some time,
but I only learned a little about him after I found that I
seemed to be following his wanderings through Paris, 100
years later.

To do this week's feature about him, I took what I
remembered and went out and took the photos. After these
were 'in the can' I discovered that buying a new book about
him had been unnecessary, as my library already contained
two good ones.

'Good books' about Eugène Atget contain photos of
course. If they are really 'good,' they also contain as
much biography as it is possible to have.

In Atget's case, this doesn't amount to much. Atget
didn't write much about himself; instead he took a lot of
photos - mostly of Paris - over a 30-year period, roughly
from 1897 to 1927.

What we know about Atget is largely the product of art
historians. Atget's motivations, as he wrote them, are mere
scraps - so his pictures of 'Vieux Paris' are essentially
his biography.

Atget lived, from 1899 until he died in 1927, in
Montparnasse's Rue Campagne-Première. He moved in a
long time before Montparnasse's heyday. May Ray lived
in
the same street for three years before he 'discovered'
Atget - after Atget had been living there for 26 years.

Atget began to become famous two years after he died.
While alive, he sold photographs of Paris to city
institutions - as 'documents of Paris.' Nobody at the time
saw these photos as unique. Nobody imagined that Atget
would become synonymous with 'Paris photographer.'

If
the café is heated, inside tables near windows offer
winter scenes in grey.

The fact seems to be, nobody knew that Eugène
Atget had given himself the 30-year-long job of recording
'Vieux Paris' while he was alive. It is like one of the
cliché starving and unknown artist stories - which
turn out to be true.

One Metropole reader wrote to say that he managed to
find many of Atget's subjects in Paris, and spent a whole
visit photographing them. This means that Atget's fear of
'old Paris' disappearing completely, was unfounded.

Instead of doing this, I went to one area where I'd
never been before and three others that I knew. I looked
for 'Atget-type' subjects, but I didn't spend 30 years on
it.

This issue is in black and white, for all of the
photographers of Paris, but especially for Eugène
Atget - a man who gave his vision to his own job, with
indefatigable determination. The Paris fan's ultimate
fan.

On Friday with Mark Kritz, we did a little tour of
Saint-Germain, by starting on the Rue de Seine. From there
we shifted over to the Beaux-Arts, crossed west on the Rue
Jacob and went up the Rue des Saints-Pères, past -
as Mark said, "The second ugliest building in Paris."

The 'digital darkroom' session never happened, but
there's always the next time.

My Busted Window

'Do-It-Yourself,' if it is not drawing, is not my
profession. It was not comfortable last weekend in
Metropole's editorial office, with all the fresh air let in
by the window I had to break to get inside after I lost my
door key.

Having no idea of how to replace the broken glass, I
piled what I could again the gaping hole, until I had the
time to fix it. The first place I went for
glass had glass - success number one - but my measurements
were off - failure number one - by three millimetres too
long.

The busted window - the same in color as in
black and white - cold.

Going back with the glass, the hardware place was open -
success number two - and the man there clipped off the
offending three extra millimetres - success number three -
and didn't charge for it - success number four.

When I looked in my toolbox, the only thing I found as a
tool was a second-rate screwdriver - semi-failure number
two - but it worked well enough to clear out the old glass
remains and the sealant - success number five.

Putting on the new sealant was silly-putty work -
semi-success number six - and smoothing it out with the
handle of a knife, was semi-success number seven.

What to do with the pail full of broken glass is still a
mystery. Where is broken glass supposed to go?

The
Winter Sales Are On Now

Paris' traditional winter sales, put back from their
normal starting time of the beginning of January, began on
Saturday and will continue for six weeks.

Parisians had their favorite shops and department stores
besieged early on Saturday morning, and the fleetest of the
fleet had their 'sales' shopping wrapped up for the year by
noon.

Exceptionally, many shops were open yesterday as well.
The same thing must be going on in
London, because last week 'Eurostar' plastered Paris with
posters inviting everybody to go shopping across the
channel.

Since the posters were illustrated with photos of wild
and frenzied Beatles' fans, I decided against going
offshore. The much calmer 'Corsets de Paris' around the
corner is also having its sales, and I thought this could
sum it up nicely.

Corner grocery stores do not have
winter sales at any time of year.

It does, but its 'Soldes' signs do not show well in the
photo. Undergarments for ladies are stylish, so they can be
put 'on sale' because there is a never-ending train of new
models coming along.

This is not the case for men as far as I know. When I
used to look closely at the 'soldes,' underwear and socks
were never, ever on sale. Not in Paris, and I guess not in
London.

Metropole Takes a Break

There will be no new edition of Metropole next Monday.
There is no compelling reason not to have one, and I am not
going to count the numbers of issues since the last time I
had a week off. I don't have enough fingers to do this.

The Café Metropole Club will hold its regular
meeting this coming Thursday, and the 'report' about it
will be put online as usual. The following meeting, on
Thursday, 27. January, will get the same treatment. These
will be signalled as 'Updates' on the contents page.

As usual, if any stunning 'news' pops up in Paris, it
will be reported as quickly as possible. If this happens,
an 'Alert' note will be added to the opening contents page,
with details added as 'updates' on the Au Bistro
page.

Café Metropole Club's 14th Session
Re-Doodle

The 14th weekly meeting of the 'Café Metropole
Club' ran off as a sort of impromptu party last Thursday
and I managed not to lose my door key after it. Five new
members signed in, which is not a record, but was not bad
either. Read all about it on last week's 'Club 'Report'' page.

This Was Metropole One Year Ago:

Issue 4.03 - 18. January
1999 - The Café Metropole column was titled by
its 'Ed' - 'A Dog's Life for Strollers.' 'Au Bistro' had
'Paris' 'Monster' Blizzard.' This issue had one feature,
entitled 'Foujita - Superstar! In Montparnasse.' The issue
had 'Paris' Scene' - For a change - 'Now Featuring 1999' -
which was a bit tardy. There were four
'Posters of the Week' and Ric's Cartoon of the Week was
captioned 'L'Apéro Aprés-Ski.' It does not
sound like an exciting issue at all.

This Was
Metropole Two Years Ago:

Issue 3.03 - 19. January
1998 - The Café Metropole column had 'Lack of
Window Gazing Foils Weather Report.' Still sound familiar?
The 'Au Bistro' column was headlined 'Papon Says It Was
Somebody Else's Fault.' This issue had two features,
entitled 'Weddings On the Cheap Unchic in Paris' and 'The
Memorial of the Deportation.' Readers stepped in with
emails: 'Anti-Semitism and Captain Dreyfus.'There were
four'Posters of the Week' and Ric's Cartoon of the Week was
captioned 'Jules Verne Wedding Receptions.'

The
Metropole Paris Countdown to 31. December 2000:

For unknown reasons, this silly countdown continues with
the third issue of 2000, even though readers have not
demanded a 'do the right thing' countdown to the real
beginning of the next century and even more importantly, to
the next millennium. This new countdown will last only 366
days. The reason for doing this is to give the Tour Eiffel
a new chance to 'get it right' - because so many count-down
fans missed shouting 'Zéro' on Friday, 31. December
1999.